The Machine

[RiverNotch]

-----the machine

You try for what feels right. / But what feels good? / You are trying. Don't get the slashes. Why not just break the lines?

Eyelids Not entirely sure if the title works for me -- would think this would be a better one.

You could close your book and eyes. Would prefer more continuity with your sentence breaks as written. This could be a comma,
Count ten twice. this a colon,
The flashing lights might stop then—
then, they might stop. and the then here feels kinda redundant, a turnaround that's unnecessary.

They won't.

You could run into a field of corn.
You would hear the crisp snap of the leaves shattering upon your advance.
You would smell dust.
You would get tiny, itchy cuts. I find the slow, stilted thought rhythm of these four lines inappropriate; perhaps change up the periods? And perhaps a colon here, at the end.
It would feel still and uncomfortable, and The placement of the and at the end of this line is plainly awful.
you would be self-conscious because even though running into a corn field seems natural, and maybe even wholesome,
it isn't done, I love the clean turn in the rhythm here, from the last long line.
and the rattling sound betrays you,
and there are corn snakes,
if there are corn snakes. I feel your reading of these five lines are a bit too slow, especially with the commas.

You could stop mid-stride and echo-locate the road fifty feet away. Echolocate is one word, and it's also a bit detracting, being so advanced a thought compared to all else.
You could stop mid-stride, and huff and pant, wondering at yourself for this queer election. Election? Also, colon.
Maybe you are powerful that way. Question mark?
You could whistle loudly.
You could whistle quietly.
You could be a soundless animal. With the last stanza in mind, I feel an "even" is needed here. And perhaps commas instead of periods.

You could pretend to be mad in a public place.
You could stare at the thing you're worrying about. 
You could masturbate in a gas station bathroom.
You could wash off with pink soap.
You could ask permission first and, after hearing no, cause distress by going into the bathroom anyway, for normal reasons. "For normal reasons" is very unnecessary.

You won't.

You could cry out in pain. You could do it whenever you decide it would help.

You won't.

You could refuse to continue to not be on the roof of anything—your car, your house, a crayon rendering of your house. The crayon rendering here is an unnecessary image, I think.

You could drink water in the shadow you have made. This shouldn't be a separate stanza. If so done, the earlier could end with an em dash.

You won't. 

You could ask irrelevant questions to the pretty girl until she ceases to be joyful. You could hate yourself, then.
You could carry yourself through Minyards as if in no past life were you ever once a slave.
You could practice holding eye contact, 
how to hold an orange, 
how to hold this orange. I love it when oranges -- well, any well-used food item, really -- shows up in poetry. These four lines are good, though I'm not sure if the specificity of "Minyards" is appropriate for this poem; so far, I don't think I've really caught any strong specifics.

You won't. 

You could find someone to love.
You could stop phoning it in
all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time . . . And I hate it when things repeat for too long.
You could make yourself open to being wounded.

You won't.

Over and over.

You won't. 

You'll continue not to have past lives, or important secrets, or the ability to wink charmingly.
You'll have this life. This one. Comma between "life" and the second "this"; comma between this line and the next.

And you will try not to blink when they come for you.

It will not matter.

You will blink. 

You are not allowed to say what you are thinking. This feels like a lead into some early-on aborted item (probably related to the title, whose relationship to the whole poem I never really got). Either remove, or replace and develop.

The repetition isn't my main problem here; soundwise, it's good rhythm. But thoughtwise, the breaks between the repeats, the usage of the period over the comma damages the poem's thought-rhythm integrity, for me. I didn't get as much from all this as I'd have hoped for: intellectually, I agree with Billy that the poem doesn't seem as witty as it could be, though the plays with the imagery and the ideas are enough for this to be satisfying; emotionally and experientially, I just didn't get it much, but I'll try and read this a few more times to see if that's really so. And for the audio, I dunno, it feels a bit slow -- but I've only listened up to the masturbation scene.

[audio:  https://dl.dropbox.com/s/xupfp2p5yc8v7vz...e.m4a?dl=1]